South Korea's health authorities said Saturday they will continue a free flu shots program despite dozens of recent deaths after vaccinations, as they found no links between vaccines and fatalities. The number of deaths following flu shots jumped to 48 as of Saturday after the first suspected death was reported on Oct. 16, according to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA). About 80 percent of the dead were in their 70s and 80s.     "We are not in th

  South Korea's new coronavirus cases returned to below 100 on Saturday after triple-digit infections were reported for the past two days, as sporadic cluster infections continued at senior care hospitals and other risk-prone facilities. The country added 77 more COVID-19 cases, including 66 domestic infections, raising the total caseload to 25,775, according to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA). New virus cases exceeded 100 for the past two days. Daily new cases came

A Seoul court on Friday sentenced a man to two years in prison on charges of stalking a top female Go player. The 48-year-old suspect is accused of stalking Cho Hye-yeon, 35, for a year until last April and leaving messages and profanity on the outer wall of her academy teaching Go, called "baduk" in Korean. "The nature of the suspect's crime is very bad to the extent that the victim hired a private bodyguard due to trauma and anxiety that she wasn't being properly protected und

The family of the South Korean official killed by North Korean soldiers in North Korean waters continued to accuse the government of “dishonoring” the deceased man by saying he defected to the North due to financial difficulties. The Coast Guard said Thursday that the official, whose job was guiding fishing boats near the inter-Korean maritime border, had been heavily involved in online gambling and had wired gambling money shortly before he went missing. The bereaved family’

The government is providing 50.9 billion won ($44.9 million) to six cities and provinces that sustained damages from back-to-back typhoons in September. The Ministry of the Interior and Safety announced Friday that the government will provide 22.3 billion won to Gangwon Province, 19.8 billion won to North Gyeongsang Province and 4.7 billion won to South Gyeongsang Province as special budgetary support. The government will also provide Ulsan with 2.1 billion won, Jeju Island with 1.2 billion wo

Authorities are on alert after another wild boar was found with a dangerous virus in Gangwon Province. Provincial authorities announced Friday that a wild boar found dead outside its African swine fever control area in Hwacheon, Gangwon Province, tested positive for the disease that’s especially deadly for animals. Eight pig farms contain 18,120 pigs in a 10-kilometer radius of where the dead boar was found. One of the farms is just 600 meters from where the carcass was found, they said.

A man has been sentenced to a 10-month prison term for assaulting a bus driver who had demanded the passenger wear a mask, as well as a police officer dispatched to the scene, a Seoul court said Friday. The Seoul Northern District Court handed down the imprisonment ruling on the 61-year-old man, whose identity was withheld, on the account of assaulting a person behind the wheel. Aboard a bus in central Seoul on Aug. 14, the man shouted at the bus driver and cursed at other passengers after th

Concerns over seasonal flu shots grew further on Friday as deaths after vaccinations swelled to over 30, with health experts split over whether to go ahead with a state-led free shot program amid a potential "twindemic" of the new coronavirus and the flu. Although no connection has been confirmed between the recent fatalities and vaccines, public fears have been mounting in South Korea over flu shots. Since the first suspected death from a flu shot was reported last Friday, 36 have d

Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun on Friday called for a thorough probe into the deaths of people after being vaccinated against seasonal influenza. As of midnight Thursday, 30 people have died after inoculation, but health authorities found no direct links between the vaccine and fatalities. "I offer my deep condolences to the bereaved families," Chung said at a meeting of the Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasure Headquarters. "The authorities should thoroughly investigate t

A son of the South Korean fisheries official shot dead by North Korea last month has written another letter to President Moon Jae-in, saying he was encouraged by the president's promise to get to the bottom of the incident. The 17-year-old sent the letter Monday, a week after Moon replied to his previous note, according to the late official's elder brother, Lee Rae-jin. "I believe in your words that you will demand accountability where it is warranted, that honor must be restored if (we)

A cold wave swept across the nation on Friday, with the mercury dipping to near or below zero in Seoul and central areas, weather authorities said. According to the Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA), the morning low dropped to minus 4.7 C at Mount Seorak in the northeastern province of Gangwon and minus 3.4 C at nearby Hyangro Peak in Inje, while temperatures dived to the season's lowest in almost all other regions nationwide. The morning low fell to 1.1 C in Seoul's northwestern distr

South Korea’s new daily COVID-19 cases bounced back to a level not seen in over a month Friday, due to clusters of infections traced to senior care homes and social gatherings, as well as double-digit increases in imported cases. Korea added 155 new coronavirus cases -- 138 locally transmitted and 17 imported from overseas -- in the 24 hours ending midnight on Thursday, according to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency. “We are seeing an upward trend in the number of n

South Korea‘s health authorities reaffirmed Thursday that the state-initiated seasonal flu shot program will continue despite more suspected deaths, citing no direct link between flu shots and deaths. “There were more reported cases of death; yet, it is the experts’ opinion that there is no direct link between the deaths and the vaccination,” Jeong Eun-kyeong, director of the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency, said during a parliamentary hearing. As of 4 p.m

More unexplained deaths reported, but officials find no link to flu vaccines so far

An appeals court on Thursday reduced the prison sentence of a former defense minister convicted of political meddling by two months. The Seoul High Court sentenced Kim Kwan-jin, who served as defense minister from 2010 to 2014, to 28 months in prison on charges of ordering the military cyber command to post online comments in favor of the then-conservative government around the general and presidential elections in 2012. The commutation came after a lower court sentenced Kim to 30 months in pr